Summer means a whole lot of fun in the sun for college students across the country, but it's also a time many of them take on internships in their career field. This year, the coronavirus pandemic has forced companies to put their internship programs on hold, but some are offering virtual opportunities. 

What You Need To Know


  • COVID-19 has forced many internship programs to go virtual

  • A Buffalo State rising senior details his experience interning from home

  • PCA Technology Group is offering him the opportunity to intern remotely 

Ezana Tefera is a rising senior at SUNY Buffalo State College. The computer information systems major is interning from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"It's nice to have an internship in the current situation," Tefera said.

Tefera started his internship with the PCA Technology Group in February. Then in mid-March, the pandemic forced him to turn his bedroom into an office. 

"It was a smooth transition, we had talked me and my supervisor about some ways of communication that we can utilize and so that we could catch up and be able to mimic us being in the office," he said.

Tefera interns with PCA Technology's software development department. Since he's taking summer classes, he works about three to four hours each day Monday through Friday. One of his latest projects involved building a COVID-19 questionnaire that company employees can take online before they head into work.

"What I've been doing is just doing research, finding what is the best way to do this and what would effectively automate it because before they were doing the questionnaire through email and collect responses that way," Tefera said.

He usually checks in with his supervisor via Microsoft Teams to go over what he worked on previously and his plans for the day. 

 "We've given him access to our internal development systems remotely, and given him projects he can work on from home that support our internal function," said Dennis Piskadlo, Tefera's supervisor and a software developer at PCA Technology Group.

With many companies putting their internship programs on the back burner for now, Piskadlo says it was a no-brainer to continue Ezana's internship despite the pandemic.

"It's how we're giving back, to try and help the next generation of technology students gain some real-world experience. It seemed a real shame to let an opportunity like that pass him by so we wanted to keep him on board," Piskadlo said.

Tefera does admit he misses going into the office to work alongside like-minded people, but he ultimately thinks he's getting the same valuable experience.

"PCA has been giving me projects that I have been able to work on that I find give me value, and also will help accelerate me to get my first job," said Tefera.